Policing in Context: Understanding Crowd Dynamics

1. Policing in Context: Understanding Crowd Dynamics Reflections on crowd/police interactions and current thinking on crowd dynamics

2. Work on riots, political demonstrations, carnivals, football matches and ceremonial occasions. Supported by the ESRC, Home Office, Metropolitan Police, London, NPIA (National Police Improvement Agency formerly Centrex), University of Abertay and SIPR (Scottish Institute for Policing Research). UK Collaborators: Dundee, Liverpool and Sussex. International Collaborators: Dutch National Police Institute

3. The duty of the police service in Scotland is “to prevent and detect crime – and to preserve public order”1 Public order and community policing

4. Strategic (Gold) Tactical (Silver) Operational (Bronze) Our work has shown that police decision making at these levels is informed by accountability concerns to internal and external audiences. Complexity of police decision making

5. Provoke/permit violence – a dilemma

6. Arrest To kit/not to kit officers Use of officers with protective equipment Use of dogs Use of horses Contain/’Kettling’ Do nothing What tactics should we use?

7. Police accountability • Internal audiences (senior and junior officers) – senior officers suggest • this is a bijou event, junior officers are calling for the horses to clear the • streets. • External audiences (politicians, political commentators, • journalists, protest groups, lobbyists) Massive political pressure exerted • on senior officers to avoid London coming to a standstill.

8. Prior to any conflict, no tension between internal and external sources of accountability Incipient conflict (a few bricks and bottles) can be held to account for both provoking and permitting violence Full Monty – When London burns - can only be held to account both, internally and externally, for permitting violence to occur Changing accountability

10. Four principles: Intelligence Facilitation Communication Differentiation Practical advice

11. Intelligence: Prior to any event, the police should identify all the groups that might be involved and their perspective on events: their intentions, their tactics, their notions of acceptable behaviour, their views of other groups and how they view their history with those groups including any grievances or points of sensitivity. Intelligence

12. Intelligence may also indicate the proportion of different groups in the crowd, how homogenous the crowd might be in its intentions, whether any groups have intentions that the police cannot sanction, and how confrontational these groups will be when their intentions are frustrated. Intelligence

13. Facilitation: The police should consider both in advance and during any event how to facilitate any lawful and legitimate aims of groups that are present. They should also consider whether there are legitimate alternatives through which crowd members can express themselves even when they propose illegitimate actions. Facilitation

14. These considerations are particularly important when conflict begins to break out and may make the difference between escalation to full-blown riot and isolated acts of violence. The aim should be to permit the pursuit of lawful aims whilst impeding unlawful acts Facilitation

15. Communication: It is important to devise in advance a communications strategy which considers what is communicated, who communicates and how communication occurs. Communication

16. The police should communicate to crowds how they are seeking to facilitate the crowd’s legitimate aims and how the illegitimate actions of some in the crowd may serve to impede those aims. Communication

17. Communication should be through figures respected by crowd members and liaison should be established at an early stage. Communication technologies may vary from leaflets handed out in advance to sound and display systems that will be noticed even under crowd conditions. Communication

18. Differentiation: Under conditions where conflict is expected, and especially if conflict begins to break out, there is a tendency to treat all crowd members with hostility. Differentiation

19. However especially in such situations, it is crucial to treat people with respect and win them to the police side, not the side of those initiating conflict. When formulating a response to potential or actual disorder, it is always critical to act in ways that distinguish between people promoting conflict and other crowd members. Differentiation

20. This is important at all stages from designing tactics to planning events to implementing tactics. Even if only a few individuals are treated inappropriately (e.g. pregnant women caught up in an ‘isolate and contain’ tactic) it can do considerable harm to an otherwise successful police operation. Differentiation

21. Thus police commanders should ensure that officers distinguish clearly between crowd members at all times and that they place as much priority on helping the majority to act peacefully as on preventing a minority act violently. Differentiation

22. The police need to utilise intelligence, communication, differentiation and facilitation strategies which avoid the situation of them treating a physical aggregate of people as a psychological crowd. Conclusions

23. Police decision making in public order situations is complex and influenced by accountability concerns. Important to realise how intra group processes (relations within the police themselves) affect decisions. Conclusions

24. Also, need to take account of how police decisions on strategy and tactics influences the crowd (intergroup relations). Questions? Conclusions

25. SIPR (Scottish Institute for Policing research) Public Policy forum (Scotland) University of Edinburgh Thanks to co sponsors of the event:

26. Cronin, P. D. J. & Reicher, S.D. (2009). Accountability processes and group dynamics: a SIDE perspective on the policing of an anti-capitalist riot: European Journal of Social Psychology. Vol. 39, 237 - 254. Cronin, P.D.J., & Reicher, S. (2006). A study of the factors that influence how senior officers police crowd events: On SIDE outside the laboratory. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 175-196. Selected references

27. Cronin, P.D.J. & Reicher, S.D.(2002). Report and recommendations into the policing of the May Day Protests (2001): London: Metropolitan Police. Reicher, S.D., Stott, C., Cronin, P.& Adang, O. (2003) Association of Chief Police Officers manual for keeping the peace.London: Home Office. Reicher, S.D., Stott, C., Cronin, P.& Adang, O. A new approach to crowd psychology and public order policing. (Policing 2004 - vol. 27. no.4). Selected references

28. Le Bon, G. (1895, trans. 1947). The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. London: Ernest Benn. Reicher, S., Stott, C., Drury, J., Adang, O., Cronin, P., & Livingstone, A. (2008). Knowledge-based public order policing: Principles and practice. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 1, 403-415. Selected references